I was just at the local JAC dealer and they had a JAC version of a Santa Fe. It had only the JAC name on the grill and a star logo on hatch and did not say Santa Fe. Does anyone know if this is the exact same as the Hyundai Santa Fe? The price was much better than the Hyundai at about 144000 RMB with AWD, leather and sunroof. I took it for a test drive and the engine sounds a bit loud but it drives well and the transmission and clutch were very smooth. There was too much plastic over the engine to get a good look at it and a rain storm was just about to hit. The people at the dealership did not know much about it. Any information on this would be helpful since I am just about to buy something and this is high on my list.

I believe that is the Sante Fe-based Rein (Ruiying) SRV that was introduced last spring.

The star logo that you saw, I'm guessing is the Chinese character for "big" 大 placed in an oval. I'm not sure why this logo, which I thought belonged to Baoding Dadi Auto, is being used by JAC. To my knowledge there are no connections between the two companies.

About two years ago JAC signed a 50/50 joint venture agreement with Hyundai. The two agreed to target an annual production goal of 10,000 buses, 90,000 trucks, and engines for 50,000 small commercial cars by 2010.